The present invention relates to an arrangement for the continuous control of track-bound vehicles and more particularly to such an arrangement where data is communicated between a fixed control station and the vehicles by track-conductor loops which are AC fed by supply units coupled to the control station and which are inductively coupled to the vehicles.
German Pat. No. (DE-OS) 2,402,932 discloses a continuous vehicle control arrangement in which the track-conductor loops are formed by several short, shunt-fed track-conductor loops instead of by one long loop. That arrangement has the advantage that when a loop fails--e.g. due to damage to a track conductor--data communication between vehicle and track can continue, for the vehicles are capable of traversing one short-loop length without information.
Providing a track with short loops in the known manner is very expensive because the shunt feed requires a large number of supply units, referred to as "isolation devices" in the above cited German patent. Even more supply units are needed if a redundant arrangement of short loops as shown in FIG. 4 of the above-cited German patent is used.